The Justice Department on Thursday failed to secure a new indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke to NBC News.
The move came less than two weeks after the initial criminal case against her was thrown out.
James — a frequent political target of President Donald Trump who previously won a civil fraud case against him — had earlier been indicted by a grand jury on one count of bank fraud and another count of making false statements to a financial institution.
She has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
In the original case, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney to Trump with no prior prosecutorial experience, personally presented the matter to a grand jury. That indictment was invalidated on Nov. 24, when a judge ruled that Halligan’s appointment was unlawful.
The Justice Department initially said it would appeal the decision by U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, but later shifted course and opted to pursue a fresh indictment against James, a source familiar with the internal discussions told NBC News earlier this week.
This time, a different team of prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia.
Thursday’s failure to obtain an indictment does not prevent prosecutors from trying again.
A separate source familiar with the matter cautioned that there “should be no premature celebrations.”
The Justice Department does not comment publicly on grand jury proceedings.
Prosecutors have also been weighing whether to again pursue charges against former FBI Director James Comey, who was indicted earlier in October on allegations of making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation.
Currie dismissed the case against Comey on the same day she tossed the charges against James, citing the same legal issue.
Trump appointed Halligan as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District on Sept. 20, one day after pushing out his initial choice, Erik Siebert, who had resisted pressure to prosecute Comey and James.
Halligan’s appointment followed a social media post in which Trump urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to move forward with prosecutions of Comey, James and another political adversary, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.
“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,’” Trump wrote in the post, which a source previously confirmed to NBC News he had intended as a private message to Bondi rather than a public statement.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump continued, while praising Halligan as “a really good lawyer.”
